Software Utilities for Traffic Simulation Models

Simulation models of traffic flow on highways are increasingly becoming the choice of many analysts and traffic engineers as analytical tools to test, evaluate and implement traffic control/management systems alternatives. Several computer models exist which simulate vehicular traffic on urban and rural road networks at various levels of detail. The TRAF (for integrated TRAffic simulation) family of simulation programs, and the evacuation model, IDYNEV (for Interactive Dynamic Evacuation model) are examples of these models. As would be expected, these models are data intensive. In this paper, the need for and development of software utilities for creating input to the simulation models and analyzing their output is discussed. The development of a Software Utility for Regional Evacuation (SURE) is discussed in detail. The pre-processor module of SURE substantially reduces the time required to create input files to IDYNEV and the post-processor module summarizes the simulated results from the usually huge IDYNEV output files. The model also illustrates the evacuation network graphically and highlights problem links and intersections at selected intervals. These development methods could easily be adopted to other simulation programs with similar input structure such as the TRAF modeling system.